The present invention relates to a small musical instrument, and more particularly relates to an improvement in resonance of a musical instrument such as an idiophone and a membranophone.
As idiophones, jingles are known in general. In construction of a jingle, a number of bells are attached on the periphery of a hemicyclic shell whose ends are connected to each other by a holder for manual handling. In another example of a jingle, a number of bells are attached in lines to an elongated shell having a holder for manual handling. A tambourine jingle includes a circular shell, a number of metallic jingles attached circumferentially to the shell and a holder diametrically attached to the circular shell for manual handling. These idiophones all generate musical tones when shaken by the player's hand.
With these constructions of the conventional idiophones, no substantial resonance occurs on the shells in response to vibrations of the tone generators such as the bells and jingles. In other words, no special consideration is paid for development of resonance in production of the conventional idiophones. As a consequence, tone volume of musical tones generated is directly influenced by the vibration of the shell only and no development of echo can be expected.
In the general construction of membranophones such as tomtoms, tambourines and drums, one end of a cylindrical stem is closed by a membranous head made of leather or synthetic resin. Several jingles are attached to the shell in some examples.
In this case also, the shell is poorly resonant in response to vibrations of the head. Some resonance is present in the case of a drum in which air in the space defined by its stem vibrates more or less in response to the vibration of the head. This resonance is close in type to air column resonance and is added to the elastic vibration of the stem itself. This type of resonance naturally requires increased length of the cylindrical stem in order to have sufficient echo in performance and is rather unsuited for percussion musical instruments.
An improvement is proposed in Japanese Patent Application Sho. 62-54476 filed on Mar. 9, 1985. The proposed percussive musical instrument includes a body, a head attached to the body and a hollow resonator box attached to the body and having an opening directed towards the head. Appreciable resonance can be developed without enlarging the construction. However, one cannot expect rich resonance in response to a wide variety of musical tones. That is, the resonator box is resonant in response to a limited number of tones.
Another improvement is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,668,462 in relation to a monkey tambourine. This tambourine includes a small ring-shaped shell carrying a number of metallic jingles and a hollow resonator box formed on the shell and effecting internal resonant oscillation of tones generated by the jingles. The resonator box has a curved face for manual handling and an elongated slot is formed in the curved face. During performance, the slot is fully or locally closed by player's fingers for selective generation of musical tones of different pitches.
With this proposed construction, only one resonator box is formed on the shell with a slot for finger control. As a consequence, control of tonal pitch is limited to a very narrow range and the degree of tone amplification is limited too. A high degree of technique is additionally necessary for correct and subtle control of tonal pitch.